Giraween

Giraween is a sensational place to camp. Ben had a lot of fond childhood memories from staying at Giraween and was keen to take the kids and I there. We went there for the mothers day weekend in 09.

There are tons of walks to do at Giraween. We spent the majority of our weekend trekking up and down mountains. Yes, that is exactly how I wanted to spend my mothers day weekend - NOT!!! No, it wasn't too bad. I got breaky in bed on mothers day morning and Ben took me to a nearby shop called 'the chocolate shop' (need I say more???).


This was the first time I used the camp toilet dad had given me and might I say I was suitably impressed. I did not venture into the loos at Giraween so I can not even give them a rating for cleanliness or tell you whether the showers had hot water.

There are some lovely places to swim at Giraween but unfortunately when we were there it was bloody freezing. I think it got down to -5 one night. It was soooo cold. I had on about 6 layers of clothes and was wrapped up in a sleeping bag, thermal blankets, doona... you name it. But I was still breastfeeding Rohan so I would have to get up to him at night and get my boob out in the freezing cold so he could have a feed. I also found that in that kind of weather I needed to pee a lot more at night. Getting out of bed and having to strip down to go to the toilet isn't fun. Neither is getting out of bed and having to strip one of the girls down so they can go to the toilet. I felt like my nights were just up, down, up, down, cold, warm, cold, warm. Not fun.

You can imagine how impressed I was with Ben ,who was bright and cheery during the day time because he hadn't been woken up 6 million times at night. Why is it that the kids always wake me at night and not him. "mummy I wet the bed, mummy jazzy spewed, mummy Rohan has done a poo, mummy I had a nightmare".... seems to be the story of my life!!! No matter how much training I give them (and believe me I try) they just won't wake Ben up for any of these matters. I am beginning to suspect that there is some kind of conspiracy here. Maybe Ben is bribing them with something??

I have put a few pics in of our camp set up. As you can see I like everything to be up off the floor. For someone who is a messy, disorganised person at home I am surprisingly anal about cleanliness when we are camping (although not nearly as clean and organised as two of my friends are when they camp - who both happen to be named Nicole!!)

I don't like to sleep on the ground so Ben and I got one of those blow up beds on a stand. This made a massive difference to the comfort factor of camping. I slept really well on it and liked having a 'normal' feeling bed while camping. The kids had stretcher bed bunks and all our clothes were stored in those plastic drawer things up on a table.

The actual campsites at Giraween are quite rocky and dirty. I don't mean dirty as in unclean, I mean dirty as in lots of dirt and dust. We were worried that the rocks underneath our tent would put holes in the floor of our tent. Luckily they didn't but you could see the tiny rocks bulging through. I would suggest anyone who is going to camp there in a tent should take a floor covering of some sort, maybe some foam mats???




Anyway I am going to sign off now. I keep accidentally deleting the pictures and it is driving me insane having to re upload them. Perhaps next time I should add pics last. Aaaahhh... one day I might get the hang of this!!!

Overall - highly recommended for anyone who likes bush camping and hiking.

xx